The tranquil world of Hiroshima

65 years after the bomb, the site of the world's greatest nuclear devastation is now a graciously landscaped oasis

The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park is a memorial to the people who were killed in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima during World War II.

Photograph by: Tony Atherton
, for the Ottawa Citizen

In the smallest display case in the most unassuming corner of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, there rests what may be the collection's most arresting artifact.

It is a battered, corroded wristwatch, its hand frozen at the precise moment, 65 years ago, when the world changed forever.

At 8:15 a.m., Aug. 5, 1945, the crew of an American B-29, flying over Hiroshima in a cloudless sky, dropped a bomb packed with 60 kilograms of uranium-235. The plane was named after the pilot's mother, Enola Gay. Its bomb dropped for 57 seconds before detonating 600 metres above the city of 350,000. Within a few more seconds, nearly a third of the Hiroshima's population was dead.

Another third, including tens of thousands who presumed themselves unscathed, was dying, and would be dead by the year's end. Most of the dead were civilians: women, children, the elderly, and Korean and Chinese conscripts in forced labour camps.

It was the first -- and remains the most devastating -- use of nuclear weaponry. It precipitated the end of the war and marked the dawn of the modern age. It is the single most ferocious act of violence in human history. And it is commemorated in a museum unstintingly devoted to peace.

Some war-related memorials inspire horror, like the museum at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Others have pointed political messages, like the War Remnants Museum in Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon). The mood at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, and in the verdant Peace Memorial Park that surrounds it, is -- remarkably, given the history of the place -- serene and contemplative.

We visited Hiroshima in April, cherry blossom season in Japan. Our visit was just a few weeks after a historic nuclear arms reduction agreement between the U.S. and Russia, and on the eve of a world nuclear weapons summit in Washington.

We knew that in four months, UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon would be among the illustrious visitors to Hiroshima for the ceremony to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the bombing.

Given all this, we felt almost compelled to visit the city during our 10-day stay in Japan.

We came on a daytrip from Kyoto, about 21/2 hours away by bullet train. Like most visitors to this industrial city of 1.2 million, home of the Mazda Motor Corporation, we caught a No. 6 tram at the Japan Railway Station. It took us to a stop called Genbaku Dome-mae, where the Ota River splits on its final sprint to Hiroshima Bay.

Before the bomb, this had been the commercial heart of Hiroshima. After the bomb, it had been a wasteland. The radius of total destruction was 1.6 kilometres.

Now, the site of Hiroshima's greatest devastation is a graciously landscaped oasis in the middle of city, several acres of greenery bounded by the river and dotted with almost 70 memorials and monuments dedicated to making the memory of what took place here transcend the pain it caused.

The Peace Clock Tower, the Peace Fountain, the Prayer Haiku Monument for Peace, the Stone Lantern of Peace, the Peace Memorial Post, the Peace Cairn, the Friendship Monument, the Fountain of Prayer. The list goes on and on.

Among this welter are several must-sees, beginning with the

A-Bomb Dome, whose skeletal remains greet you as you step off the tram.

The Hiroshima Prefectural Commercial Exhibition Hall was the pride of the city when it was built in 1915. Because the bomb detonated almost directly above the building's dome, it escaped the worst of its destructive force and became the only structure in the area not to be reduced to dust. Now it looks like some old ruined cathedral, and was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996, over the war-related objections of the U.S. and China.

Stroll a few metres down the Ota River and you'll reach the Memorial Tower to the Mobilized Students, a tiered structure upon which carved doves roost. It commemorates the 6,300 students conscripted to work in Hiroshima's munitions factories, all killed in the blast.

At the base of the memorial, innumerable garlands of colourful origami cranes bedeck a statue of Kannon, the bodhisattva, or enlightened being venerated by Buddhists for her compassion.

The tower is not to be confused with the park's more famous repository of paper cranes, the Children's Peace Monument, which occupies a square just across the bridge. It is a memorial for the thousands of children who died during the bombing, but for one in particular: Sadako Sasaki, made legendary by Eleanor Coerr's 1977 book, Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes.

Sadako was two years old when the bomb dropped and 12 when she was diagnosed with leukemia from the lingering radiation. In her final months, she folded more than 1,000 paper cranes, hoping to be granted a longer life.

When she died, her school friends took up her cause and raised money for the memorial. Now paper cranes, imbued with a wish for peace, arrive daily from children all over the world.

Beyond the Children's Peace Monument is the Peace Bell, upon which is carved a map of the world, conspicuously devoid of borders. Visitors are invited to sound the bell by swinging a log that strikes a nuclear symbol. Nearby is the Atomic Bomb Memorial Mound, which contains the ashes of 70,000 unidentified or unclaimed victims of the bombing.

Heading back downriver, one comes to a broad plaza lined with trees trimmed to resemble heat-blasted figures. Here you'll find the Peace Flame, intended to burn until the last nuclear weapon is disarmed, and the Cenotaph, a triumphant arch over a stone chest said to contain all the names of the victims of the bomb. The list is still being updated; each year, more members of the hibakusha (bomb survivors) pass away from radiation-related illness.

Behind the plaza is the museum, which records the destruction of the city. There are some disturbing displays here, but overall the curators show amazing restraint. There is not a hint of censure, though much regret, and a sense of responsibility to the future that is universal.

There are other sights to see in Hiroshima, some directly related to the war (like the ad hoc displays in two elementary schools largely destroyed by the bombing), and others less so (Hiroshima Castle is a 1958 replica of the 16th-century original razed by the blast).

But the Peace Memorial Park -- which, under an azure sky and a cloud of cherry blossoms, seems more like a sacred shrine than a war monument -- makes Hiroshima worth a pilgrimmage.

Former Citizen writer Tony Atherton, now living in Asia, says he thinks Hiroshima is a better symbol of the postwar change in Japan than Toyota or Honda.

IF YOU GO

When to go: Anytime this year, the 65th anniversary of the dropping of the bomb. If you time your visit to coincide with the annual memorial ceremony on Aug. 6, you'll be in the company of UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon and perhaps U.S. President Barack Obama. The day's events include a minute of silence at 8:15 a.m. and a flotilla of lighted lanterns on the river in the evening.

How to get there: By bullet train from almost anywhere in Japan. Many foreign tourists get rail passes before their visit, which allow them to hop on and off the convenient Japan Rail trains that connect the country, as well as the JR commuter train that circumscribes Tokyo (details at www.jrpass.com). The pass won't let you board the Nozumi train, which takes you direct from Tokyo to Hiroshima in four hours, but there are connecting trains that will span the same distance in five hours. Alternatively there are flights into Hiroshima airport from Tokyo, Sapporo, Sendai and Okinawa.

What you'll need: Canadian passport holders do not need a visa to visit Japan.

Where to stay: You can do the Memorial Peace Park in a day, but if you do decide to stay over, there are lots of options. Hiroshima is a large, modern city offering everything from hostels and ryokans (Japanese style guesthouses) to luxury hotels.

Where to eat: There's a bistro with a patio at the bridge near the Memorial Tower which makes a pleasant stop for a meal or a glass of wine. Just outside the park, behind the museum and across from the Gates of Peace (six towering angular arches covered in the word "peace" in 49 languages), is Ristorante Mario, which offers good pizza and pasta in an old European-style building with tables overlooking the park.

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